Posted on 05/16/2023 1:44:22 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
NEW YORK (AP) — At the end of “The Searchers,” one of John Wayne’s most renowned Westerns, a kidnapped girl has been rescued and a family reunited. As the closing music swells, Wayne’s character looks around at his kin — people who have other people to lean on — and then walks off toward the dusty West Texas horizon, lonesome and alone.
It’s a classic example of a fundamental American tall tale — that of a nation built on notions of individualism, a male-dominated story filled with loners and “rugged individualists” who suck it up, do what needs to be done, ride off into the sunset and like it that way.
In reality, loneliness in America can be deadly. This month, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared it an American epidemic, saying that it takes as deadly a toll as smoking upon the population of the United States. “Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows,” he said, “and that’s not right.”
He cited some potent forces: the gradual withering of longstanding institutions, decreased engagement with churches, the fraying bonds of extended families. When you add recent stressors — the rise of social media and virtual life, post-9/11 polarization and the way COVID-19 interrupted existence — the challenge becomes even more stark.
People are lonely the world over. But as far back as the early 19th century, when the word “loneliness” began to be used in its current context in American life, some were already asking the question: Do the contours of American society — that emphasis on individualism, that spreading out with impunity over a vast, sometimes outsized landscape — encourage isolation and alienation?
Or is that, like other chunks of the American story, a premise built on myths?
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Ass Press living up to its name.
John Wayne type tough guys, the ones who get it done without being asked and leave without needing effusive praises - like most of my kin - are nothing like the squishy, pasty, picked last for dodge ball and now 32 years old still playing video games from their mom’s basement girly-boys that constitute the ‘male’ portion of the demo-marxists.
The AP is trying to cuddle them and make their ‘feels’ better. It’s actually pretty funny!
AP=BS
the rats want to ban single family housing.,
When you have Jesus and Jesus has you you can be alone but never lonely. In fact you have literally everything.
Preparing us to eat bugs and live in Blackrock managed high density housing hot racking with 20 other people.
You’re never alone when you’re a schizophrenic.
If this were to be “fixed” it would take a generation or two.
End government schools — they socialize children in nothing but terrible ways.
Encourage school choice so that children learn in better environments (preferably at home).
Encourage local clubs for kids and for older people, centered around common interests and crafts.
And also:
Lock up mentally ill people (let them out if they seem to get better).
Lock up pedophiles (and never let them out under any circumstances: they don’t ever “get better”).
Create fun social environments for people without mentally ill people or pedophiles messing things up. In 30 years or so, things will be better.
Maybe this guy ought to watch the Searchers” again with fresh eyes. He didn’t “get it” the first time.
The rest of the article is puffery for squishy people.
Clearly, he should have walked off into the sun in search of his gender identity.
When democrats took over the culture and ‘bowling alone’ (the name of a book/study done in the early years of decline) became the new ‘hellhole’ standard the slide started.
It’s why grandmothers aren’t encouraging their grand kids to have have children.
Evil people like George Soros and intelligence thugs and goons and democrat liars and cheats have ruined the country for citizens. They don’t care - they’ll bring in the third world to function as their servants and turn the country into a third world thug republic.... good for the very few on places like Martha’s Vineyard and a hellhole for the rest of us. Horrible people.
The elites are in for an ugly awakening ... they will be forced to see who they are and what they’ve done and we will tell their children what monsters they are...forever.
\Oh, and let’s default. There wasn’t any ‘bipartisan’ crap on the spending side - and we should not work with democrats now. They’ll screw us over again. We have nothing to lose.
Commie Rats want to convince you it’s not good to be alone. If you are alone, chances are there is not a Commie spy watching you.
I divorced in 2001. I didn’t have a choice. Being alone for a long period allowed me to carefully sort through what happened. It was not fun, but it was a necessary and beneficial process. I am a better, stronger, more confident man because I healed alone with no one holding my hand.
Being alone was far better than being with my wacko ex or settling for some other crazed female whose only qualifications were being available. The Good Lord steered me through the danger of several other nut job applicants. I was single for 18 1/2 years when I married my current wife. She is awesome, truly a good woman and a gift from the Almighty. I am richly blessed.
What are Ted Anthony’s pronouns? Does he have a husband?
Yeah - America’s idea of individualism and free markets is so bad, everyone is lining up to illegally enter it to get away from their democratic socialist countries.
Merit, personal responsibility, hard work, living your own life, etc., are all horrible evils. Communism and girly-men built America with cooperation as its own reward. Thank you, collectivist AP reporter, for explaining this to us dullards.
Look at his name ... another foreigner with another culture .... embedded in our government .... mouthing off ....
“...and the way COVID-19 interrupted existence.”
What a passive pant load!
You mean “the results of the government’s tyrannical lockdowns, separation of families as family members died, bankrupting small businesses, mandates and malicious targeting of those who simply wanted to be left to their own lives...all caused by YOU?
...THAT “interruption”?
And I thought Dr.ZHIVAGO was only a movie!
All the goal of the liberal/progressive faction of politics.
They want people isolated and alone. Then they can’t rise up together and defeat the elitists. Isolated, lonely people are easier to control, intimidate, and manipulate. You can put down any resistance one at a time.
You can bet the left is unified and not lonely and alone. We see it all the time.
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